C3.5 R2: Prepare and deliver educational seminar to nurses, physicians or other allied health care members

On Monday I had the opportunity to co-present in Psych Grand Rounds with my preceptor and co-learner. In psychiatry, and especially in pediatric psychiatry there is a great deal of questions regarding the use of natural health products in lieu or as adjunct to pharmacotherapy.

This was an interesting opportunity, as my preceptor had already developed the slides in advance for delivering the lecture to the undergraduate pharmacy program. However, in order for me to feel comfortable presenting the topic I prepared the slides with talking points and going through them with a fine comb to find any errors. The presentation was surrounding presenting the highest quality of evidence available for NHPs in pediatric psych. I was glad I had prior experience in presenting literature to groups (case presentations and journal clubs) in order to be familiar with how to best make presenting literature interesting and captivating.

I presented on St John’s Wort, Zinc and Gingko Biloba. It was interesting to delve into the primary literature on these articles and to do a critical appraisal on these often poor quality and poor methodology studies.

In terms of the audience, I presented to a crowd of ~25-35 people including psychiatrists, psychologists, medical residents, nurse practitioners, nurse clinicians, social work, and teachers. It was interesting to present to such a variety of clinicians with such a variety of background.

As a learning exercise (luckily or unluckily for me) the rounds were recorded and I had the opportunity to truly reflect on my presentation style. I was glad that I sounded confident and not shaky (though I felt like I had a shaky voice, but it didn’t show!). Some ongoing things I hope to work on is: minimizing my hand gestures, and slowing down when I speak.

I was really grateful to my preceptor for encouraging me to present and have this great opportunity to practice my public presenting skills.